Mid Life
Timothee's printing career started just following the departure for Carolina of Thomas Whitmarsh, a journeyman in Benjamin Franklin's printing business, whom Franklin funded as a silent partner when Whitmarsh began the South-Carolina Gazette in Charleston. Franklin had an opening for a journeyman in his Philadelphia shop in 1733. Timothee had linguistic abilities and was knowledgeable in the printing trade. Franklin decided to hire Timothee based on these talents since he needed a new printer partner right away. To avoid tipping off his competitors with whom Franklin exchanged other newspapers of Charles Towne printers, Franklin never announced Whitmarsh's death in the Pennsylvania Gazette, but just went ahead and hired Timothee as his replacement.
Franklin hired Timothee by November 1733 on almost the same terms that Whitmarsh had with him as a partner. Timothee probably was already working in Franklin's shop by February 1732. Since Timothee was fluent in German, soon after he was working at Franklin's shop in 1732 Timothee translated into English for publication a lengthy German letter. He had done such a good job at this Franklin shortly afterward assigned Timothee responsibility for a short-lived German-language newspaper.
In 1732 also Franklin arranged for Timothee to serve as a part-time librarian for the Library Company of Philadelphia, one of Franklin's first philanthropic projects. Franklin started the library July 1, 1731. There was no librarian until November 14, 1732, when Timothee was hired as the first salaried librarian in the American colonies. He was paid three pounds sterling every trimester. He worked every Wednesday from two to three o'clock and every Saturday from ten to four.
Read more about this topic: Louis Timothee
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